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If you’re responsible for email marketing at your e-commerce or retail company – run, don’t walk, into your boss’s office and demand your well-deserved bonus. When she asks how you’ve suddenly become so empowered just explain the new reality of holiday sales.

Black Friday is no longer just the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. With earlier offers and more online sales, Black Friday is now generally considered the period from Thanksgiving Thursday through the following Sunday.

Despite having a longer period this year, the New York Times estimates that shoppers visiting stores and websites spent 11% less, from $57.4 billion to $50.9 billion. So far, retailers seem to be at a loss to explain the unexpected downturn.

A closer look at the numbers reveals the story. Spoiler alert – we hit a retail sales tipping point. Here’s what I mean, along the curve from traditional retail to e-commerce sales you don’t often see or feel iterative changes as they’re happening. But then there’s a tipping point – a time when the balance shifts from one to the other. With year-over-year brick-and-mortar sales down 5.2% and online sales up 14.3%, as far as Black Friday is concerned, we experienced that shift last week.

Now here’s the bonus clincher for marketers — email marketing was the primary digital channel driving 27.3% of online sales! According to Custora, an e-commerce analytics platform, sales from organic and paid search lagged a distant second and third at 18.9% and 18.5% respectively.

Email marketing’s lead isn’t necessarily news for those of us that have been around more than a couple of years, but this time it’s different. As retail’s shift from in-line to online accelerates, digital marketing earns bragging rights but also takes more responsibility for earning revenue. And with a generous lead over other digital channels, most of that responsibility falls squarely on email marketing.

It’s still early, but with expanding emphasis and greater revenue dependance on email marketing we might start seeing new titles like Vice President for Email Marketing or Chief Email Marketing Officer being added to the C-Suite. Why stop at just a holiday bonus – wish big!